Who am I?

I'm spending my day today pitching my project at work to senior leadership, meaning VPs and above. It's kind of weird because I'm not really asking their permission to continue the project, but I still need their blessing in order to be successful. I have to be assertive and confident so that it doesn't appear that I'm asking whether I can do it, but deferential enough to show that I value and respect their opinions.

As I listen to myself in these meetings, I sometimes wonder how I've turned into the corporate robot I appear to be. Here are things I heard myself saying today:

"We've worked hard to make sure our cross-functional team is aligned across all touchpoints so the messaging is consistent."

"I appreciate your feedback on that point. I'll make sure I touch base with (insert name here) offline to make sure we address it."

"We'll just be covering the first 17 pages of the deck I sent this morning. The remainder is an appendix for your reference."

What? Do I really talk like that? I'm like a bad version of The Office or Office Space. What's worse is that's what's expected. Nobody can actually come out and say "Different departments worked together for once so we don't seem like idiots." Or, "Oh crap, I forgot to address that. I don't want to talk about it now, though." Or, "I could only get an hour on your schedule so we can't talk about everything I know about this, but I still want you to know it."

And I'm not even 30 yet. Oh dear.